Other players are joining the fray, as Amazon's Zoox is now operating limited driverless services in the U.S., and startups like May Mobility and Nuro are developing their driverless offerings.
Tesla lags behind several companies that are already operating commercial robotaxi services with no drivers or safety monitors present. Alphabet's Waymo leads the U.S. market, while Baidu's Apollo Go is out front in China with significant competition from W,eRide.
Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's vice president of software, wrote in a separate post that the Austin Robotaxi service included, "a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors." He said the ratio of driverless to supervised vehicles will increase over time in that market.
"Just started Tesla Robotaxi drives in Austin with no safety monitor in the car," Musk posted on X. "Congrats to the @Tesla_AI team!"
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Thursday that his company is now running a small number of its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin, Texas, without a human driver or safety supervisor on board.
Musk said in July that Tesla would likely have "autonomous ride hailing in probably half the population of the U.S. by the end of the year." The company fell far shy of that goal.
However, Tesla drummed up excitement with the launch of its Robotaxi ride-hailing app, and its initial services in Austin and the San Francisco Bay area.
In Texas, Tesla obtained a permit to run a transportation networking company, which allowed it to use "automated driving systems," or driverless vehicles, there. But in California, Tesla has yet to obtain permits that would allow it to conduct driverless testing or robotaxi rides without a human at the wheel, ready to steer or brake at any time.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, Musk said, "I think self-driving cars is essentially a solved problem at this point," adding that he expects his company's Robotaxi service will be "very widespread by the end of this year within the U.S."
Musk is notorious for missing his self-imposed timelines for grand technical or business achievements.
... continue reading